The ear-piercing rasp belonged to Earl Weaver, who was on the floor, under his desk.He was manager of the Baltimore Orioles in 1979 when I was a rookie baseball writer with the Baltimore Evening Sun.

Weaver was in a panic because his team was on a winning streak, and he used the same pen to write out the lineup card every day -- until the team lost. Then he trashed the pen, and grabbed a new one. But the lucky pen was lost. Soon, three writers and Weaver were looking all over his office for the pen. Finally, veteran Baltimore writer Ken Nigro found it.

Weaver let out a sigh, lit up an unfiltered cigarette and filled out his lineup card.

That story came to mind when I heard that Weaver died last week at the age of 82. I was glad he lasted so long. As Weaver often said, "The worst thing is a day game after a day game." That's because the nights were free to hit the bars, as was the custom of so many in baseball in that era.

I recently was telling Weaver stories to a friend and a devoted baseball fan. She had heard of Weaver, but as we talked, I realized that she wasn't even born in 1979 -- the one year I spent covering the Orioles.

The stories sounded as if they came from so long ago and far away. Managers and media members are not as close these days for a variety of reason. I still recall how Weaver would say, "Pluto, I always read your crap when I'm sitting on the toilet ... helps loosen things up."

Then he'd cackle.

I was a young, often scared and overwhelmed writer. He could have crushed me. Instead, he nurtured me. Taught me. Teased me. Once in a great while, cussed me with words that I never heard in quite those combinations before.

As the 1979 playoffs were ready to start, he knew that I had missed a story.

"Pluto," he said. "Ask me who's starting Game 1."

We were alone in his office. "I thought it was [Jim] Palmer," I said.

"Ask me," he said.

"Who's starting Game 1?" I asked.

"It's supposed to be Palmer, but the SOB don't want to start Game 1," he said. "He said I should start [Mike] Flanagan. So I'm starting Flanagan."

I had a story that only one other writer knew about.

Son of Sam?

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Tribe fans may remember the night of June 18, 1979. Yes, the evening Weaver tore up the rulebook at the old Cleveland Stadium.

The three writers who traveled knew it was coming the moment he stormed out of the dugout with a rulebook. Weaver had been saying for months that the umpires didn't know the rules, and threatened to "rip the book to shreds" during a game.

Over the years, he had been ejected for kicking dirt on home plate. For kicking dirt on umpires' shoes. For pulling up third base and carrying it off the field. For bobbing his head back-and-forth and pecking at an umpire's chin with the beak of his baseball cap.

Those were just some of the reasons former umpire Jim Evans called Weaver "baseball's Son of Sam." That night in Cleveland, he tossed pages of the rulebook above his head, and watched them fluttering down -- all because umpire Larry Barnett failed to call catcher's interference.

That same year, Weaver was ejected and protested a game because of the "umpire's integrity." The umpire was Ron Luciano. In a 1977 speech, Luciano had said, "I hate Earl Weaver, and I hope any team wins but Weaver's." He was not assigned any Orioles' games for two years. The moment he appeared on the same field as Weaver's team, the manager filed a protest. He was suspended for three games.

Weaver was born in 1930, grew up during the Depression and World War II. The world was a hard place, and you needed every edge to survive. He was only 5-7, but was signed to a pro contract and made it as far as Class AA. Then he began a managing career, working his way up to every level.

From 1968-82, his Orioles averaged 97 wins and only twice failed to finish as high as second place. He won four pennants, one World Series.

He also had 94 ejections in his career, including one in a World Series.

Before Moneyball

View full sizeEarl Weaver flipped his lid in this 1974 argument with umpire Marty Springstead during an Orioles-White Sox game in Chicago. AP file

Before baseball fell in love with statistics, Weaver owned the numbers.

Now, even casual fans know how certain hitters perform against certain pitchers. With one click of the computer, I found out that new Tribe outfielder Nick Swisher is 11-of-55 (.200) against Detroit's Justin Verlander. Fellow Tribe outfielder Michael Brantley is 10-of-23 (.435).

It was Weaver who came up with the idea of individual stats of pitchers vs. hitters. It happened when he noticed that great-field, no-hit shortstop Mark Belanger seemed surprisingly effective against future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. Weaver had summer interns going through old boxscores, compiling the numbers on index cards. He showed them to writers before the game, explaining his lineup.

He was like the first general who thought, "Why should all my troops lineup and march right into the guns of the other guy? Let's hide behind trees and rocks."

Before a game, Weaver would walk by one of his players and whisper, "You're 5-of-9 against this pitcher." Then walk away.

Weaver had also stats about how important it was for pitchers to throw their first pitch to a batter for a strike, as it lowered batting averages as much as 100 points. He hated the bunt. He often said, "If you play for one run, that's all you get."

He loved home runs, "Nothing can go wrong with them." He detested the hit-and-run: "If you want to steal a base, steal a base. Don't make the hitter swing at a bad pitch trying to protect the runner."

He believed in the intentional walk: "Don't tell a pitcher to pitch around a guy. You do that, and half of these Rockheads [one of his favorite words] will throw the ball down the middle when you tell them to throw it outside. That's how it works."

Weaver was not liked by most of his players. He could be crude. He called the disabled list "The Dead List" because an injured player "is dead to me, I can't use him." He didn't worry much about egos, just results.

But he won tons of games with his motto of "pitching, defense and three-run homers." He also taught me how the game worked -- even did it with a lot of patience and heart, something I'll never forget.

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